Their Kelvin Sampson interlude was like the Rich Rod years here - painful but short-lived. (Ditto Matt Doherty at UNC.) It's one thing to have a couple of bad years, but it got so bad here, for so long, that recruits were literally asking Beilein, "Has Michigan ever been good in basketball?"

Those teams have all been number one recently. They have been there before. This is like the selection Saturday parties at Crisler. A step that a young team should enjoy, but will be common more common as we grow.

Actually I go to IU and you would have thought they won the National Championship when the polls announced IU as the pre-season number one. They were probably way more excited about that, then Michigan fans about the January number 1. Which neither is that big a deal, but I'd rather be number one in January, than in the pre-season.

JB said he couldn't put weight on it, but I agree it did look like he was moving around a bit on the bench. Honestly if J-Mo were out for 3 or 4 weeks, I wouldn't be all that unhappy. All I care about is if he is back for March madness. After last year's disappointment (albeit to a pretty good and hot OHIO team), this team needs to make a deep tourney run to validate its season.

It's not only promising that he came out without a boot, but that he went into the locker room walking almost completely by himself.

He rolled is pretty bad. I've done that before playing sports, and I couldn't run on it for the rest of the day. Then the next morning it was a little swollen but just a little and after 24-48 hours it's fine, maybe less.

I'm sure he'll be fine. If he missed only Northwestern that's no big deal.

Eh, that's a pretty standard writing tactic. Compare [current team/player] with [past team/player], then throw in a "They might even do something [past team/player] didn't do - win it all" line at the end.

Oh yeah, I didn't really notice that paragraph the first time around. That was unnecessary. (And unfair - teams get more timeouts per game now than they did back then. Then, it was only three per half. Under current rules, Webber's timeout would have been legal.)

The point is, the NCAA recognized that having games be decided by technical fouls over timeout calls was pretty crummy (it happened in another NCAA tournament game a year or two later) , and so it added more timeouts to a team's allotment, thereby making it unlikely to happen again. Now you almost never see teams run out of them.

It's indeed very unlikely that any of our players will call a timeout we don't have - because we have more timeouts available now.

Yeah, I still think that logic is flawed. Adding another timeout doesn't prevent a team from calling timeouts when there are none left. Obviously, I don't have stats on this, but there are plenty of games that finish with teams without timeouts still.

I think we are arguing past each other. I'm not commenting on whether or not Webber should have been able to remember that there were no timeouts left. I'm noting that the NCAA has since made that kind of scenario (having the ball with no timeouts left) less common, so of course it's less likely for someone today to do something like that.

I don't have the numbers either, but I'm pretty sure that teams finish games with more timeouts now that they used to. I can't think of many games I've watched lately where either team has been out. I don't know if it's happened in any Michigan game this season. It'd be interested to see the data.

Teams tend to run out of timeouts during close games when they are trying to stop the clock, call specific plays, and/or make offense/defense substitutions. How many of Michigan's games have been close down the stretch this year? Not many.

If you looked only at close games—which is the only time calling a timeout you don't have would matter anyway—I'll bet teams run out of timeouts now just as much as they used to.

Isn't it the case that you can carry only four timeouts into the second half anyway? We're only talking about one more timeout.

These kids may not sound like it, electing to go with the company line, but they are excited -- and deservedly so. They have brought Michigan basketball back. It doesn't have the glitz and glamour of the old days, when booster Ed Martin was paying Webber and other players. Football is king in Ann Arbor now, not hoops -- and that's just the way Beilein prefers it.

Obviously I don't have to tell anyone here that football has always been king in Ann Arbor, regardless of the fortunes of the basketball team.

If last week's AP poll was any indication, we were at least starting to push on the door of #1 in this poll even then if you look at individual voters and their behavior. We managed 11 first place votes and 31 second place votes, so I have to believe that wins against Purdue and Illinois push a decent portion of those 31 votes in our direction. We've actually had at least one first place vote every week since week seven, but never more than three before last week. The trend and the performance are definitely promising, I think.

...with the OP. In the "grand scheme of things", I would argue that it is pretty significant for M to get a number one ranking right now. Even if it only lasts a few days in January, it is still indicative that the program has finally returned to the top of college basketball. After the past twenty years, that is pretty significant.

No longer downtrodden, shamed, embarrassed and resigned, the basketball team is fully back as a top level program. And with that definitively accomplished (fingers crossed for the afternoon's polls), attention can turn to the more concrete (yet still elusive, even for those fabulous five) goals of winning the Big Ten and the NCAA Tournement. Looking like a great day, Go Blue!

I will agree with you about being #1 being good for the program for now. Winning in march will be a better barometer to measure if the program is back. If we lose in the 1st weekend again, that would not indicate the program is back. Determining whether programs are successful is solely based on performances in march and early April IMO. We will be considered "top program" this year if we win it all.

...they may not award trophies for being ranked number one in January but, regardless, the fact is that right now they are the best team in the country and everybody knows it. That is a big deal.

How much time did the Fab Five spend ranked #1? How about the 1989 championship team? Or any Michigan basketball team (or even football team for that matter)? We may win championships but it is pretty rare for the rest of the sporting world to look at us and admit that, yes, we are the best. It's like that old kids game, King of the Hill, and we've finally muscled our way back on top. Feels good, awesome even, Hell yeah!!!

5 years later to the day- Michigan is 19-1, tied for 1st in the B1G and will be ranked #1.

There should be a movie entitled "20 Years" featuring 20 years of Michigan basketball. From the Fab Five to today. All of the shit this program has been through, and the suffering & having Crisler taken over by opposing fans to winning a B1G Championship and starting the season 19-1 and about to be #1.

I just hope we can retain a #1 ranking for more than 1 week. Our date with Indiana is going to be a really, really tough game. I don't think we play good enough defense to win @ Indiana, but I hope I am wrong.

Edit: I expect to go 3-2 in the next 5 games, with wins against Northwestern, Ohio State, and either Wisconsin/MSU with losses to Indiana and whichever Wisconsin/MSU we don't beat. If we emerge from this stretch at 3-1, I think we are firmly in control of the conference, because our schedule lightens up considerably afterwards with lots of home games, two games againts PSU, etc.